Crash barriers- Quitamiedos.
 

A large motorcycle rally took place here in Spain yesterday which had the benefit of wide spread media coverage. The final assembly point for the rally was the Santiago Bernabeu stadium...the home of Real Madrid.

The rally was a protest against the continued use of metal safety barriers extensively on Spanish roads when for equivalent cost much more "human friendly" options are available. The metal options cater of course more for cars and the like rather than for motorcyclists and the very name here in Spain....Quitamiedos......."remove fear" means that they are provided in part as a safety feature to prevent vehicles dissapearing down canyons etc, but also to put drivers minds at peace as they navigate meandering mountain roads.

However in 2005 some 10'000 motorcyclists suffered severe injuries by coming in to contact with the present type of barriers. This is not all as a result of excessive speed, as an impact of just 30kmh with a barrier is enough to cause damage sufficient to require the amputation of a limb.

Razor sharp top and bottom edges, a distance from the ground to the bottom edge of the barrier which provides in itself a potentially horrid risk of injury for a falling rider,(just ask Big Ape) Another failing of the present barriers is that they offer no "give" when contacted by a rider...they stand firm against a human body and this is where the greater problem lies.

There are as mentioned real alternatives that offer the chance of survival without the ruining of your future and it is only right that the new technology be introduced.

Spain has a horrific road safety record, more than twice as bad as the UK. I don't see how they plan to have ones that give when hit by a body, they have to stop artics after all.

As an aside, have you ever thought about careening into those modern style wire motorway barriers we get now, instant mulchification I should imagine. I do worry about the posts of armco too, imagine sliding under there.

No one said it was the safest hobby.

arenalife wrote:

How profound! :roll:

You have passed comment without having any knowledge of the alternative solutions available. Of course the barriers still need to do a certain job but it has been proven that the new products although being affective in halting a vehicle, are less damaging to the human body.

New versions see the use of a variety of different cross sections for the upright supports and some with an outer protection layer of absorbtion material. Others utilise different configurations of actual rail. The objective being to absorb impact and deflect as opposed to stopping dead any object making contact.

There are systems completely manufactured from plastic type materials that again have been proven to be as affective but many times safer than the type presently employed.

Some pictures shown here:http://www.topsuperbike.com/guardarrail/

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/9...tipo002vz7.jpg

There was talk about these barriers in a Bike magazine article recently. I think the conclusion they came to was that accidents on motorways where motorcyclists actually hit the central reservation are few and far between. This meant that the benefits provided by the 'springy' action provided by the cable barriers (they stretch and then push the car, HGV or whatever back onto it's own carriageway, rather than breaking and allowing said vehicle to burst through into the oncoming traffic) far outweighed any heightened risk to bikers.

Seems to me that a lot of barriers are being replaced by a concrete wall nowadays anyway, a lot of the M25 now has a 2 or 3 foot wall instead of armco or wire. Which is not only stronger and probably safer for us, but also has the advantage of preventing people from seeing what's going on on the other side, reducing 'rubbernecking' after an accident on the other carriageway and the tailbacks that causes.

Mike

They had the same problem in portugal, especialy on the off/on ramps to the motorways etc.. They part sorted it by just putting old tyres on the posts or adding a curtian along the bottom of the barrier.

A couple of months ago a biker was decapitated by the rails , and i keep hearing horror stories about them , its a irony that they call them quitameidos in spain , they scare the hell out of me ...

i heard that the concrete is way safer than the current barriers, as no one really hits it at 90 degrees, so you'd just slide to a stop. Yesterday was the first day i could go faaast on my sv (after 600mile service) and those barriers scared the **** out of me - looked like a grater moving past at 100mph! (trick of the light officer :wink: ) :( i just had to go faster to get past them :twisted:

Other solution was bending the start / end of the rails into the ground, to prevent the "blades" shown in PH's photos.

They did this in fifth gear or top gear - whatever - and then it created a jump. They ran a remote controlled vehicle up it to see how far it could jump. It was quite effective - lept up and over a fake motorway sign they had placed inside.

Its all a cost benefit analysis and as new technologies are developed so will things change for the safer or better - time will see to it. Hopefully the rally will put quicker thought into this development.

I saw those for the first time going down the bedford Bypass (new) a few weeks back and just seeing them gave me the eeby jeebies, instant cheese grater for any biker that comes off into those, whose brilliant idea where they!!!

Cheese Wire, a meter of empty cemement or grass, more cheese wire then the other side of the road...nice..., given the choice if I had to drop it there I'd take my chances with the cars.....I've body slammed a few side panels in my time and they are quite comfortable once you get used to 'em.